


Death in A Tarot Card

by Summerlin



Series: Redemption Arc [3]
Category: A Little Less Sixteen Candles a Little More "Touch Me" - Fall Out Boy (Song), Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: A Little Less Sixteen Candles A Little More "Touch Me" (Video), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - A Little Less Sixteen Candles (Music Video), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Blood and Violence, Brendon needs a hug, Drabble, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, I have no idea what I'm talking about with New York, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, Intimate and Platonic Brencer exists here, Los Angeles I love you, M/M, Possession, Spencer also needs a hug, Unreliable Narrator, Vampire Brendon Urie, Vampires, but no judgments, the entire Eastern Seaboard makes me uncomfortable, you all do you over there.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23591101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Summerlin/pseuds/Summerlin
Summary: Brendon is just trying to be the best sire to Spencer that he can, considering....These are their travels and rolling with the punches.Filler/Drabble/Companion piece to Sea Change.
Relationships: Spencer Smith/Brendon Urie
Series: Redemption Arc [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/849381
Kudos: 3





	Death in A Tarot Card

**Author's Note:**

> I've grown to love these boys so much and I'm sorry for what I'm going to do to them later. Please have this as an apology. 
> 
> I also wish there was a gallery option to go with posts because I was seriously vibing as I wrote this. A E S T H E T I C.

The first time it happens, Spencer collapses. 

He wasn’t lucky enough to avoid the dead weight of his head on the way down, listing backward and cracking against the cement. There hadn’t been blood, not in the way Brendon had grown used to after blackouts, and he stared in abject horror for moments before instinct kicked in, dropping the cigarette they had been sharing with the bouncer outside of the bar. 

Brendon had blamed it on narcolepsy, a pitiful human condition, perfectly logical, as he cradled Spencer’s head. There was a possibility. There was that small chance that it could be contained. That this condition Brendon had was of nurture, and not nature, that it wasn’t contagious. But he did always have the worst luck, even with the best of intentions. 

Spencer slowly comes to, his brows creasing as his eyes focus on the curious scar on Brendon’s right eyebrow that has a story Brendon is always keen to avoid explaining. For a brief moment, a lazy smile spreads on Spencer’s lips at the comforting sight of his maker before the alarm in Brendon’s eyes finally registers. 

How long had he been out? 

Where’d the cigarette go? 

He hates that look on Brendon’s face. It ages him by almost a decade, and the restrained terror in his eyes leaves a bitter taste in Spencer’s mouth. He plays it off, sitting up almost too quickly for the human bouncer to catch on that Spencer isn’t too human, and that he’d rather leave this one alone to try and socialize like a functioning adult instead of debating how they’d fare better as a meal. 

He reaches back to pick glass from his hair, glancing up at Brendon, holding his gaze for a moment before nudging his shoulder. “A waste of a cigarette,” he says, flicking the glass away. He’s slow to stand, Brendon and the bouncer hovering like he’s made of paper, ready to blow and tumble away any second. Spencer covers the growl in his throat with a shallow cough, but it’s enough to make Brendon back off, and he searches his inside jacket pocket for the small plastic canister, pulling out a roll of Skywalker Alien as a replacement. It’s enough to take the bouncer’s eyes off him and produce a lighter with a smug grin of mild excitement, but Brendon’s eyes burn a hole in his head for another half hour, even after several puffs and passes. 

\- 

Spencer had acknowledged that now as an official member of the exclusive club of immortals, time was irrelevant, only perceived between the golden and twilight hours. But holy shit was this giving him whiplash. 

He’d thought the decorations in the shop windows were sort of cute, mostly pasé. It never really clicked that it was Christmas. It was Christmas and Brendon had him cornered in the kitchen of the loft they’d commandeered in Tribeca. The smile felt forced, and Spencer caught the stench of anxiety rolling off of him in waves. 

Brendon made it clear from the start that he was terrible with surprises. Spencer learned it was the only secret he couldn’t keep, finding it incredibly endearing and oh so easy to take advantage of. This time, Brendon took the precaution of simply leaving the damn thing in the packaging this time; a massive crate that Spencer was already sizing up. 

“If that’s a fridge, Bren, I’m going to lock you in it.” 

The tentative grin on Brendon’s lips began to falter. He grips Spencer’s hand, carefully steering him away from the laptop on the kitchen island to the open floor plan. “Your old habits haven’t faded yet. I see how restless your hands have been lately.” He steps around Spencer, parking him in front of the crate with steady hands on his shoulders, leaning close to his ear, chewing his lip absently. “And you should really stop fighting me. Please let me treat you every now and then.” 

Spencer brushes his fingers over the lip of the lid. There are hints of resin coming through the grain of the wood, polished chrome, the bitter residue of WD-40. His fingernails catch at the crease as he pries the lid off, and his shoulders tense. Brendon wrings his hands, the anticipation is slowly killing him. Spencer practically wrote the book on compartmentalization, where even looking Brendon dead in the eye, he was almost impossible to read. Spencer reaches inside to brush the pads of his fingers over the rim of the drum, muttering lowly as he lists the specifications from memory. He remembers the nights he’d drone on in a drowsy stupor about his kit at the studio, how someday he’d build one of his own or flat out buy it from them. Back then, he thought Brendon only had eyes for the steady pulse in his neck, and not actually paying attention to the stream of exhausted nonsense spilling from his mouth at the end of every day. 

_Natural_ _black_ _satin stain_ _,_ _maroon hoops_ _for the snare_ _._ _Chrome_ _lugs_ _on the bass_ _,_ _revolutionary_ _wood hoops_ _._ _Black satin teardrop lugs._

This rendered the chronograph watch a paperweight. This made the set authentic Blade Runner coat with Gosling’s lingering stench of sweat just a used rag. 

And it makes the hair on his arms stand up, the ache in his gums and metallic taste of electricity on his tongue overwhelming, drenching him and rolling his neck in euphoria, brain too frozen with the shock of sensation to really process what was hitting him. 

There’s a beat. 

And he isn’t looking at the kit in the crate anymore. 

Brendon is reaching out, a trembling and placating palm held up defensively, shoulders drawn and eyes wide with alarm. Spencer’s shoulders drop and an ache throbs at the base of his skull. Brendon’s lip quivers, ready to bare his teeth until Spencer actually reaches out, taking Brendon’s hand between his own to massage the tendons, brows knitting. 

“What is it?" Spencer asks. 

But Brendon snatches his hand away, shrinking back as he glares at the floor, and Spencer suddenly feels the empty chill in his spine. Not just the absence of his maker, but something lingering. Icy fingers caressing the nape of his neck, a breath against the shell of his ear. 

Brendon swallows so hard it clicks like a key to a lock. “What did it feel like?” Spencer tries to process the context, but his voice feels used. He croaks, his reply dying the moment he opened his mouth. Brendon snaps and hisses, voice shaking with adrenaline. “WHAT DID IT FEEL LIKE?! ANSWER ME!” he snarls. 

Spencer feels the submissive impulse at the command of his maker. He didn’t feel Brendon move, didn’t feel himself take the handful of steps away from the crate. He grunts and forcefully swallows that lump. 

_“_ I-It tasted like…like lightning.” 

Brendon studies him carefully, trying to still his trembling hands by threading his fingers together, but who was he kidding? “ _Fuck_ ,” he sighs, stumbling back until his thighs hit the dining table and leans against it, tugging at his greasy tufts of hair. Spencer tries to approach him, but is stopped by Brendon’s palm against his chest. He reeks of shame, and Spencer’s nerves scream for him to please his partner, to smooth out those lines of worry around his mouth. He aches to just touch. 

Brendon still doesn’t meet his eyes, keeping them glued to the floor and grips the edge of the table. The warm falsetto of his voice breaks, wavering under the weight of his words. “I’ve passed it onto you. I’ve...passed _him_ onto you.” Spencer’s eyes narrow, tilting his head, like his brain refuses to process the words, instead obsessing over how small Brendon looks, how far away he feels. It all feels wrong. 

“I don’t understand, B.” 

Brendon scoffs, and it isn’t hostile. It’s pity. It’s more wrong. He watches Spencer from beneath his lashes, finally giving him that dignity of direct eye contact. Spencer didn’t choose any of this. Brendon owes him that courtesy. “Of course, you wouldn’t. You didn’t know what it was. You don’t know how to recognize it.” 

Spencer folds his arms protectively. He doesn’t like this spotlight on him. “But nothing happened. I didn’t do anything!” 

Brendon lets out another empty laugh, scrubbing a hand over his face. “You mocked me, Spence. You mocked the gift and...you mocked _us._ But it wasn’t you. I know it wasn’t you. I can handle that. If it’s only mild threats, we can manage this.” 

“I’d never...” 

“Because it wasn’t you, Spencer!”, Brendon’s voice reverberates off of the brick walls, letting the silence hang heavy between them. He can’t protect Spencer. He can’t keep him from this. Rip it off like a band-aid, he tells himself. “It’s only a taste. It starts with a taste. Then it asks, and then it takes.” 

“This is what you feel? You just lose minutes of your life?” 

“It was in the beginning. Whole months would go by, until...” Brendon’s lip trembles. “It was different, Spence. It was only taking. It wore me down until I was too tired to resist and I just let it in.” Spencer swallows the growl ready to tear through his throat at the thought of Brendon’s abuse, and that’s exactly what it was. “My maker took and took from me until there was barely anything left, and he just made a home in that void he hollowed out of me. There’s...there could still be a chance for you.” 

Spencer forces his feet to finally move and pushes into Brendon’s space, bracing his hands on his shoulders until Brendon melts under the anchoring pressure, pressing his temple against Spencer’s torso and sinking into his hold. He draws deep lungfuls of Spencer’s grounding scent to assure himself that it’s really him. Brendon’s shoulders drop, letting Spencer brush his fingers up the ridges of his spine to the base of his neck. Brendon groans. 

“I can feel something,” Spencer finally says, licking his lips thoughtfully, cradling Brendon’s head, carding his fingers through the tufts of hair. “It’s faint, like an aftertaste.” 

“Promise me,” Brendon mumbles. “Promise me you’ll resist it. Be vigilant. Don’t let it in. Don’t let it become more than this.” 

Spencer hums smugly. “Or I’ll go and turn someone in their shitty bathroom too?” Brendon lifts his head, letting it tilt with an almost defeated glare, because seriously? Spencer rolls his eyes, conceding. “Okay, yeah, that was a low blow. Sorry.” 

\- 

Dr. Randall’s murder had haunted Brendon for months afterward. His anger at Spencer for thinking the session was all a game only lingered for a few days, replaced with the images of the stiletto she tried bludgeon Brendon with in a feeble attempt to escape, her throat ripped open and the heady taste of her hot on his tongue, and the moment his eyes locked with Spencer’s as she bled out under their hands. 

Brendon hadn’t mustered the courage to confess his awareness during the episodes. Like a fever dream, it comes back in glimmers, but the emotions stay behind, mocking him and his hunger to rip and drink up the screams. The flash of acknowledgement, almost gleeful, in Spencer’s clouded eyes kept him from sleep, ignoring the pull of the sun as he mulled over the memory again and again. 

It was so stupid, he knew. He needed the sleep. 

The incident forced them to camp in the St. Jane on the North end of the Loop under William’s name. It was too cramped for Brendon’s liking, despite Spencer’s concerted efforts to make the best of it. He’d foolishly let the memories fester, but he knew it wasn’t just the small suite that had him on edge. When they’d landed in O’Hare, Brendon’s muscles had seized, and not even Spencer’s soothing fingers trying to pry his hand from the armrest could get him to relax. He’d lied to himself for weeks when they were planning their next move, and he tried to swallow the croak in his voice as Spencer listed off places he wanted to see. His tight, drawn smile was almost convincing as he nodded, telling himself over and over that it would be fine. They’d only spend a few weeks and then move on. But his eyes lingered on a sparse patchwork of warehouses in McKinley Park on Google Maps, and Spencer bumped against his shoulder to ask if there was anywhere he wanted to go. Brendon blinked a little too hard and shrugged, suggesting an evening Cubs game, instead of some weirdly specific patch of grass on the lake’s south shore. 

Brendon only mentioned to him off-hand that he had a history in Chicago. He didn’t give Spencer the courtesy of specificity, and maybe that was what really triggered him, ignoring the eyes that followed them down Wabash, whispers trailing after them every night that Beckett’s heir had returned, ready to lay waste to the petty turf wars left from the power vacuum with the same cruelty his predecessor had practiced. 

_He should tell Spencer_. 

Brendon really should’ve told him before it was Spencer that dragged him under this time like a riptide, swept under by Spencer’s firm grip on his hand, following the two hedge fund managers back to their glass townhouse on Columbus. They’d stared for hours from across the bar, and though Spencer wanted nothing more than a nice drink together, without an incident or fight for fucking once, they interfered. He’d dressed up for Brendon, groomed obsessively for the first night in months that they weren’t starving or traveling and just maybe he could get Brendon to smile again, even for a second. But these cocky pricks felt they absolutely had to flex to get Brendon’s attention. 

This was also the night he learned of Spencer’s jealousy. 

It wasn’t enough that Brendon’s petty possessiveness got Spencer murdered, that every day it was Spencer he clung to under the duvet, that Spencer was the only anchor he had left in the world. 

So, after several unrequited drink offers through the evening and watching the crease between Spencer’s brows grow deeper with each glass of Lagavulin he sent back to the bar, he should be allowed to show a little surprise when Spencer came completely unmoored. 

_I should tell him_ , Brendon thought through the fog of what William had showed him, let Brendon’s veins sing when they ripped into their throats in tandem, tearing flesh and shattering bones, drunk on the gurgled screams and low roar of Spencer’s laugh as he cracked their skull against the wall to get them to finally shut the fuck up. 

Somewhere distant, Brendon should be disappointed, even angry at Spencer for breaking his promise. And he should be a lot sadder that he was positive Spencer was enjoying as much as he was, now with Brendon’s bottom lip between his teeth, smearing the sticky leftovers across his chin and matting his beard. Brendon reciprocates just as fiercely, sliding his bloodstained thumbs over Spencer’s cheekbones, grinding his hips in rough, delicious circles, and he’s so sure he understands the rumbling growl coming from Spencer’s throat. 

He really should’ve fucking told him. 

\- 

Brendon decided to bring it up in Austin. 

In yet another goddamn Embassy Suites, they hide under the comforter and sheet as the hotel comes alive once the sun peeked over the horizon. Brendon had a small doubt that Spencer was even awake until he slides his fingers up to rest at the nape of Spencer’s neck, and he receives a raspy grunt in response. Spencer turns over, adjusting the pillow under his head and faces Brendon, shifting closer. He squints his bloodshot eyes through the drowsiness, but Brendon called. Spencer answers. 

“You smell like burnt hair. You’re thinking too much this early.” Spencer grumbles. Brendon pulls Spencer’s hands into his own, tongue darting out to wet his lips. It trembles in the way Spencer hates, where it makes Brendon look so small and vulnerable. He shifts to slide his arm over Brendon’s waist and up his back, anchoring them together. Bad news is coming. 

“You promised you’d fight it, Spence.” he finally says. Spencer’s stomach drops, and it feels wrong because Brendon doesn’t sound as hurt, or disappointed, or angry as he should be. “I can’t blame you though. You never asked for this.” Brendon shuts his eyes. For a long moment, Spencer thinks Brendon will shatter and break into millions of pieces here in bed, but then he sighs, relaxing under Spencer’s arm. “Neither did I.” Brendon licks his parched lips again and opens his eyes, but his gaze is distant, studying a spot on Spencer’s collarbone instead. Brendon was selfish enough to make him, but this won’t be said because he is responsible for Spencer, but because he genuinely loves him. “I’ve never been free of William, not for a second since he laid eyes on me. Back then I was too proud and...way too cocky to notice. I had friends that loved me and took me in when I had nothing. Maybe it was because Pete had finally shown the factions that William wasn’t some kind of absolute. I remember the number of brawls just getting so out of control and Pete just kind of...doubled down. He was only human and had broken William’s grip of control. I guess it makes sense that the only thing William could do to weaken him was to break the thing he loved the most.” 

Brendon had never spoken of Pete before. Spencer’s hand splays over the scar on Brendon’s back and banishes the memory of the cold steel of the stake he ripped out. 

“William had seen so much in his lifetime. Chicago felt like a part of him, a piece of his soul if he ever had one. It fit so well and I’m positive the old mob bosses learned from him. He wouldn’t just go after you, but your family, their friends’ families. He liked to set clear examples. When he took me and made sure Pete found me after, it grew like a kind of cancer. Pete’s annoying self-righteousness turned to revenge, but I tried to roll with it. Maybe I’ve been trying to do that ever since. I blacked out a couple months after that, and when he turned Pete, I was told that I watched. He’d started poisoning me by then. As soon as I’d built up a tolerance, he’d ramp it up again and I’d lose weeks, months, and then years.” Spencer watches the slow roll of his throat as Brendon swallows again, massaging his fingers absently. “I’d be tied down when he fed me. No matter how hard I fought, or screamed, I’d be gone as soon as I swallowed. Pete had the guts to break me out and that withdrawal left something behind, something William had planted there. For a long time, I thought I was okay. It was over. I’d murdered my friend but it was over and things were going to be fine. I ignored it.” 

Brendon finally shifts back to meet Spencer’s eyes and carefully guides his fingers to the egg-shaped scar at his sternum, angry tendrils of raised skin branching out around it. Brendon’s fingers tremble around Spencer’s hand, but his voice is steady. “William made sure that I could feel it all. With every atrocity he commanded from me, he made sure I felt it all and...I began to enjoy it. When I killed, I liked it. The rush of power was intoxicating. I never told Pete. I should’ve, and maybe something could’ve helped, or he could’ve stopped me before I ripped through every human in Sitka.” 

Spencer goes still, eyes searching Brendon’s for the joke. It was ridiculous. It was fucked up that he’d hoped Brendon would start laughing and maybe just shove him off the bed and yell _Sike_ _!_ , but Brendon’s look weighed him down. “Alaska? Everyone said that was a rabid bear. They...they even showed it dead on the news.” Brendon fixes his gaze again, a knowing look because he wasn’t alone in the aftermath in New York and Chicago. He knew exactly what Brendon was capable of. He remembered the drunk grin on Brendon’s face. “That was you...” 

“I watched it all, felt it all, like I wasn’t chained up in my own head. I was a willing participant. I let it in like drowning and coming up for air. I was too high from it all to realize it was Pete I wanted next. He felt like a restraint and I didn’t want him suffocating me anymore. I wanted to silence him and make him feel as starved as I did. I really should thank him. Impaling me the old-fashioned way was the best thing he’s ever done for me. He snapped me out of it and just left me there with no one left to come for me.” Brendon lets out an empty laugh and the pain in his eyes boils to the surface. “I wished it took more time for the authorities to arrive and I could’ve just burned there on the dock at sunrise. But I’m just...I’m too fucking hard to kill.” 

He breaks. Grief explodes out of him and his eyes clamp shut, curling into himself and it takes everything in Spencer to not get dragged down with him. He cradles Brendon against him, sliding his hand up around to the nape of his neck, massaging the spot, but the method isn’t effective this time as Brendon shudders with broken sobs. It lasts a good several minutes, and Spencer doesn’t have the heart to tell him to shut it down and turn it off, to just stop fucking crying because the air is thick and it’s starting to choke him. Brendon’s been numb since he left Sitka. Years of abuse breaks in violent waves when the dam broke and perhaps it’s the first time he’s truly allowing himself to feel. 

Brendon’s limbs go lax and he lets out a shuddering breath. “Be honest with me,” he mutters. “In New York, in Chicago, did you feel all of it? Did you _enjoy_ it?” 

“Yes.” Spencer doesn’t hesitate, because it was _him_ pushing Brendon against the wall with hands in his hair and kisses hard enough to bruise and teeth to slice, seeking out _more_ _more_ _more._ He enjoyed every second and Brendon was absolutely right that it was addicting. The power and control he’d wielded was undeniable. He wanted another hit. 

Brendon struggles to sit up, bending under the weight of the comforter protecting them as he takes Spencer’s face in his hands, leaning his forehead against his. It’s loving, and there isn’t a hint of reprimand in Brendon’s voice. “We must be better. We must be kinder. Stay vigilant.” 

Spencer watches in awe, reaching up to brush his thumb across Brendon’s cheek because, god, he deserves it. There are glimpses of the man he used to be and Brendon has been trying. Fuck, he’s been trying. At his core, Brendon is not cruel. He can be curious to a fault, but he is never cruel, Spencer knows. “How?” Spencer asks. “What more is there?” 

Brendon smiles, finally. The air has changed and the last wall between them collapses. It’s a delicate, almost sacred, thing. Brendon’s smile is something Spencer will make his life’s mission to become permanent. He’ll die trying. 

“There is so much more. I’ll show you.” 

\- 

Brendon is the most open he’s ever been with Spencer. 

Spencer basks in it. 

Spencer leaned against their cart of suitcases with his chin resting on his folded arms as they waited for their train in San Antonio. “Pete didn’t always want to stab you in the back?” Shit, it just rolled out of his mouth. Spencer tenses and braces himself for rejection, but Brendon doesn’t look up from the Kindle in his hands. Instead, he just smiles, even if the corners don’t really reach his eyes. 

“No. He was quite protective over me, even after I was turned. It got annoying pretty quickly. But he was a good friend. He came back for me.” 

Spencer tilts his head curiously. “You were friends?” 

“He was my brother. I like to think he’s still my brother, but I don’t think he would after...” He gestures ambiguously. 

When they’re browsing some artisan gift shop in Tuscon, they don’t stray from each other’s orbit, always in contact, always circling the other as they browse the shelves and racks. Brendon liked the Tiller-brimmed hat so much, preened at Spencer’s comment that the color suited him, that he’d decided he’ll wear it out, perching it on the crown of his head like a black halo. Spencer has come back to the same enamel cactus pin on the shelf for the third time and decides it belongs on Brendon’s leather duffel instead of the store. He adds it to his purchase. 

“Were you like his enforcer back then?” Brendon glances up with an inquisitive hum, shoulders slack but clutching a bundle of postcards protectively against his chest. Spencer squeezes by him in the narrow aisle but doesn’t drop the question. “You said he commanded you to do things.” 

“Have you seen me, Spence? Do I look like an enforcer to you?” He gets an honest to god laugh out of Brendon and for Spencer it’s like staring at the sun. 

Spencer shrugs. “You’re full of surprises.” 

“No, Spencer, I was not an enforcer,” Brendon sing-songs, kicking his ankle for good measure. Spencer flicks his ear in retort. “For the few months he had Pete under his thumb too, _he_ definitely was. I was more like...an emissary. I spoke on his behalf, interrogated, some light torture.” He cringes a bit but Spencer only mocks him, his tone dry. 

“Only light torture. Not the heavy kind. That’s nice. Skim torture. Fat-free. Vegan torture.” Brendon swats at his arm. “So you were like the Mouth of Sauron?” It earns him another, heartier laugh from Brendon and Spencer’s sure he’s actually high right now. He’s fucking floating. 

“William was literally Sauron. I was his favorite and didn’t want me getting my hands dirty too often. But in my defense, I have better teeth than that guy.” 

There's a beat before Brendon snorts, and they’re giggling in tandem. 

They leave Sedona the moment the sun sets in an Uber and a very generous tip. Spencer was still nursing his wounds, hands trembling despite Brendon’s constant attempts to still them. Brendon had tried to coax their driver to heed the sense of urgency in their ride request, only to be met with terse silence and Brendon really wants to tear the eyes out of his skull when he rolled them in the rear-view mirror. Spencer had kept his head down and refused to explain his injuries, even now he wouldn’t look Brendon in the eye. He can’t stand it. 

He takes Spencer’s hand in his own, cradling it on his lap and shifts closer in the back seat. “Did I tell you about the time my brothers kidnapped me?” he offers. Spencer shakes his head. “They drugged me with holy water, just choked me with it until I passed out. And they locked me up and starved me.” Spencer watches him now, brows creased with confusion. Why is Brendon smiling? Why would anyone smile at that? 

“Your brothers did that to you? They don’t sound like brothers.” 

“It was the only thing they could think of to get me to go quietly,” he says fondly. “Breathing in holy water was the worst mistake I could’ve made, but in the end, they brought me out of a long nightmare.” Spencer leans into the contact, resting his head against Brendon’s shoulder, taking in the scent of the laundry detergent and hair pomade. It smelled like the sea. 

“What did it feel like?” Spencer asks. If the small amount he ever came in contact with left his finger raw and irritated for weeks, it was enough to never let him experiment ever again. 

“It was agony. If you could drown in fire, I’d imagine that’s what it’d be like. From the inside out. I don’t recommend it at all.” A smile pulls at Spencer’s lips and he leans further into Brendon’s solid form. He can only imagine what his body heat is like, wonders if Brendon was as prone to sweat as he was. 

“What kind of anecdote is that?” 

Brendon threads their fingers, busying at Spencer’s palm. “I’m saying that... _we_ are hard to kill. _Us.”_ He gently lifts Spencer’s chin with his free hand to force him to look at Brendon, voice warm. “I’ve been shot, stabbed, poisoned, electrocuted, burned, and there could be much more in store, but I’m still here. I’m still with you. Whatever happened back there, it has passed. It all will pass. We will endure.” 

And Spencer’s hands stop shaking. 

When they land in LAX, Brendon lets out a sigh, and Spencer is terrified that this is a repeat of Chicago and he’s put his maker in danger again, but Brendon sinks into his seat and gives Spencer a content smile as he reached for the pair of sunglasses hooked on his collar. The cabin door opens but Brendon doesn’t move, doesn’t unbuckle the seat belt. He takes in a deep breath when the humidity rushes in. “Do you smell that?” he asks. Spencer takes in a tentative breath. He smells rubber, sweat, and the sharp tang of ethanol. 

Spencer quirks a brow. “You mean the jet fuel?” 

There’s a light in Brendon’s eyes Spencer has never seen before. The shadows under Brendon’s eyes scream exhaustion, his parched lips and ashen pallor are telltale signs of his thirst, but his eyes are bright. It fucking glows. “ _I_ _t’s the Pacific_.” 

Brendon insisted on keeping the window rolled down on their way to the rental house, taking in the air with long drags. Spencer was sure he’d sprout ears and a tail and just stick his head out like a dog, but the look of peace and resolve on Brendon’s face was so new that Spencer couldn’t stop staring. Brendon just wouldn’t stop smiling. Through the cracked skin on his lips and sharp teeth, he wouldn’t stop smiling and Spencer was absolutely drunk on it. 

When they unpack, settle in, and shower the Arizona grime off forever, Brendon pushes Spencer into the California King, straddling his hips and riding him with so much care and attention, Spencer could just die right there. Brendon can’t stop touching, can’t stop the small whine that spills from his mouth when Spencer drags his beard across his cheek to scent him, rolling his hips with a conviction like this will be the last time he ever touches Spencer and wants to make it last. 

They pull the curtains before dawn breaks and sink under the sheets for good measure. Spencer studies the sleek slope of Brendon’s throat as he spoons him, arm secure around his waist. “This will be good for us,” Brendon says, voice dry with thirst, but still so drowsy. Spencer presses his nose against his neck. “No one knows us here. No one knows what we’ve done. There’s no one to give a shit about it. We can be ourselves.” 

\- 

Nothing Spencer did could stop him. His words were ignored, hand slipping from Brendon’s as he yanked his shoes off, leaving them to trail behind in the sand. His socks follow and Spencer is trying to keep up as he gathers them in his arms. He has half a mind to tell Brendon that this isn't a nude beach, but stops when Brendon is already calf-deep in the surf and the tension drains from his shoulders. His head dips back a fraction. 

Spencer is transfixed. Brendon's hair billows in the breeze around the sunglasses he’d pushed up and forgotten, taking in long drags of the salt and seaweed. Before Spencer can even open his mouth, Brendon’s voice breaks. 

“I’d dream of this before I was put under again. This was where I’d go.” 

“It’s nice.” Spencer muses. He’s somewhere far away. Spencer isn’t sure he’s been granted permission to enter. “Is it everything you thought it’d be?” 

Brendon nods slowly. “I made a promise to someone once. I’m trying to do right by him. He thought it was a fail-safe, but it was a promise.” He finally turns and looks at Spencer, and his eyes are clear, brown and the kind of soft that Spencer just wants to drown himself in. He looks so young, and Spencer thinks that this is him, this is the man he always dreamt of seeing. Alive, with a pulse and a future. Maybe they could have that. 

Spencer wets his lips delicately. “Was it Pete?” Pity flashes in Brendon’s eyes as he shakes his head, looking back at the surf and the light of an oil rig piercing through the dark. “No. Pete never knew what it really meant. It was just between us: Patrick and me.” The name sinks in the silence. It’s concrete. 

There's another beat before Spencer gently pries, “Were you with him and William? Or...is he one of your brothers?” Brendon faces him and smiles, but the corners don’t meet his eyes. He takes his shoes and socks from Spencer’s hold and loops his arm instead, hooking them together securely. He turns them toward the jagged monoliths of rocks at the end of the shore, setting a leisurely pace. 

“That’s a story for another time.” 


End file.
